Slowdown slams the brakes on DuPage Meijer store

December 09, 2001|By William Grady, Tribune staff reporter.

Plans by Meijer for a store in DuPage County have been benched--at least temporarily--by the economic slump.

Officials in Bloomingdale say they now hope the Michigan-based company will begin construction next spring on the 200,000-square-foot superstore that won village approval nearly 1 1/2 years ago. Ground-breaking was expected this year.

Though critics sometimes grumble about the aesthetics of "big-box" stores and worry about their impact on suburban downtowns, officials in most cities and villages have courted them as sales-tax bonanzas.

For Bloomingdale and other suburbs, attempting to land a big-box retailer is similar to a major-league baseball team looking to sign a free-agent home-run hitter. They hope for a couple of big hits but know there are going to be a lot of misses.

For example, Downers Grove is losing CompUSA, a Dallas-based chain that plans to move into a store at a new shopping center in Lombard.

But Downers Grove has gained a giant EXPO Design Center, a home decor and remodeling division of Atlanta-based Home Depot.

The community also seems to have landed what would be the first Midwest store for Fry's Electronics, a San Jose-based retailer that operates 19 megastores in four states, mostly in the West and Southwest.

Fry's will take over the 23-acre site of the former AutoNation store at Finley Road and the East-West Tollway.

Steven Rockwell, Downers Grove's economic development director, said he expects Fry's to begin demolition work soon, with construction to be completed late next year.

Rockwell said Downers Grove's success in attracting big-box retailers is partly a result of its location along the East-West and North-South Tollways. The city also has become more aggressive in the last two years in offering incentives, using a set of criteria based on aesthetics, revenue potential and other factors.

"I think that Downers--with our demographics, our income levels, our ease of access--will continue to be attractive," Rockwell said. "We're not opposed to big boxes. We just want to see them put in the right places."

Bloomingdale officials see the decision by Meijer to delay construction as a temporary setback and note that a Costco Wholesale warehouse is wrapping up work on a store at Army Trail Road and Madsen Drive, in the village. Robert Iden, Bloomingdale village president, said he was not surprised that Meijer became more cautious once the economy softened.

"It would be disappointing to me only if they choose not to open that location," Iden said.

After winning approval from Bloomingdale over some community opposition, Meijer demolished about a dozen houses and other buildings between Gary Avenue and Thorn Road, north of Schick Road. The land is now overgrown. Privately held Meijer can set its own timetable for building stores, said David Bossy, president of Mid-America Real Estate Corp., a shopping center management firm based in Oakbrook Terrace.

"They buy the dirt in a market where the demographics fit their target, and then they build the store at a pace that they're comfortable with," Bossy said.

Glendale Heights, meanwhile, has had little success finding someone to take over property at North Avenue and Main Street that has been empty since a sprawling Venture store closed in late 1997.

Village officials talked with North Carolina-based Lowe's Home Improvement Centers, but Lowe's eventually chose not to build what would have been its first store in the Chicago market, said Martin Olsen, Glendale Heights community development director.

Instead, Glendale Heights is getting a Krispy Kreme doughnut store, with construction expected to begin this month on about an acre and a half of the 15-acre site.

"What we're looking at with Krispy Kreme is the potential to jump start redevelopment along the North Avenue corridor," Olsen said. But he added, "We'd love to see a big-box user similar to Lowe's."